- Chukchi Library: Kotzebue’s living room. - April 29, 2019
Kotzebue, located on a sandbar on the Chukchi sea and surrounded by nothing but tundra, does not have a lot of community attractions. Some of the options for playing out include going walking, driving around the “New Road’, a 9-mile loop on the tundra, and sliding down Cemetery Hill.
In a town like this, indoor spaces like Chukchi Library are a necessity.
“Kids need a safe, public space they can hang out in a socialize,’ said Mae Mendenhall, Chukchi Library Manager. This year Mendenhall, the library’s sole employee, is hoping to start up a Gaming Club at the library, an idea from the mainly elementary-aged kids who flood the place every day after school. Currently, there are no children’s programs offered by the library.
According to Stacy Glasier, director of UAF’s Chuckchi Campus, there used to be a lot of kids programs at the library throughout the week. Programs such as bingo, robotics, Leggo and Minecraft clubs, and preschool story time. A favorite was Super Silent Reading for Jello. “Some kids would sit there and read for hours,’ she said. Their reward was a jello jiggler every half an hour that Glasier, then library manager, provided from her food co-op order.
Both Mendenhall and Glasier agree that having an indoor place away from home is important for kids in the community, especially in Kotzebue, where there is snow on the ground for eight months, accompanied by blizzards during two.
Besides providing kids with a safe, indoor place to hang out, the library also serves the community with internet access. Especially around tax season and PFD season, Mendenhall said, the library is full of adults using the computer to file. Since the Job Center shut down a few years ago, there aren’t many alternatives for people who don’t have a computer at home.
The library is funded through both North West Arctic Borough and the University of Alaska. When Glasier was the manager the library had funding to support two full-time staff members, making children’s programs possible. Budget cuts over the last decade have cut into both staff and programs. Chukchi is looking forward to receiving a couple of grants worth about $1400 this year, but they will most likely go to supplies, making Mendenhall’s proposed Gaming Club seem out of reach.
For now, the library remains a safe positive place for people to work, read or just hang out.
Although it is tiny, occupying small partition within of the University of Alaska’s Chukchi building, it is usually full of kids after school. The one academic-use-only computer is always in use, as well as the one public-use computer. Chukchi is the only public library in the entire Northwest Arctic Borough, including the City of Kotzebue and nine surrounding villages.
“It’s kind of a community living room,” Glasier said.
